


Haremlander: A Homelander x Reader Story, Part 2

by annie000expatriated



Series: Haremlander: A Homelander x Reader Story [2]
Category: The Boys (TV 2019)
Genre: Anal Sex, Beating, Branding, Canon-Typical Violence, F/F, F/M, Homophobia, Multi, Power Imbalance, Rape/Non-con Elements, Rough Sex, Sexual Violence, Whipping
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-15
Updated: 2020-12-28
Packaged: 2021-03-10 23:34:08
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 8
Words: 20,980
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28085514
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/annie000expatriated/pseuds/annie000expatriated
Summary: Sixteen years ago, Homelander discovered that he had a son. Only to watch Ryan being taken from him again. The boy was carried away from a scene of carnage by Billy Butcher at the tender age of eight.He tried to replace what was taken from him. You were an unwilling part of that plan.With intervention from The Boys you escaped to New Zealand.But you couldn't hide forever, could you?This is Part 2. Check out Part 1 if you haven’t already!
Relationships: Stormfront (The Boys) & Original Character(s), The Homelander | John/Original Female Character(s), The Homelander | John/Stormfront, The Homelander | John/You
Series: Haremlander: A Homelander x Reader Story [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2057556
Comments: 44
Kudos: 63





	1. Chapter 1: Oh Beautiful for Spacious Skies

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Super eyes see everything.

**Chapter 1: Oh Beautiful for Spacious Skies**

You look to the window at your left. It is half-open, letting in the scents of a New Zealand forest on an early spring morning. You smell damp earth. Sunlight shines on the Manoao trees outside. They glisten with the droplets of a recent rainfall.

You hear a sound like irregular thunder. But you are used to it by now.

That sound means that David and Grace are sparring in the woods. Flying about in the canopy and punching through trees. Exercising and training their Super powers, as they have done often since their early teens. Your twins celebrated their sixteenth birthday several months ago. It is a Sunday morning.

You had green tea with honey earlier and can still taste it on your tongue. Your kitchen smells of the apple-scented dish soap you used to wash your cup. Beneath the open window, the stainless steel sink reflects the morning sunlight. The countertop and cabinets are sage-green, the walls made of pale planks. 

Your eyes return to the rich brown wood of the table in front of you. You feel the wooden bars of the kitchen chair against your spine, and the stuffed seat cushion beneath you. Your feet are clad in socks and warm slippers. Your simple green sundress is still wet from washing the dishes.

Lying upon this round table is something the size of your car’s key fob. But it is made of stainless steel, shaped into a single button. 

A button you have never pressed.

You have toyed with it many times over the years, feeling its smooth texture with your fingers. You have examined it in minute detail when you couldn't sleep. Now it sits on the polished wood of your kitchen table, next to your cell phone. 

Your finger feels cold and clammy as it passes over the cell phone screen, scrolling through the same old photos again. Photos of Grace Mallory, and yourself, with your son and daughter over the years. Sixteen years of single motherhood with frequent visits from GG, her blonde bun growing grayer over time as the lines in her face deepened. 

The grief doesn't cut as deep into you as it did last week, when you first heard the news that Grace Mallory passed away. But you keep scrolling through the same old pictures. 

You remember her saying to you that dying of old age was a luxury not everyone in the CIA could afford. When it seemed likely to happen before too long, she told you over the phone that she considered herself lucky.

Still, you have lost a friend whom you considered family. David and Grace have lost their godmother. She was the namesake of one of your twins.

They called her “GG” since they were small. Two gs, for Godmother Grace. You began to do the same. Too confusing to have two Graces in the same house every time she came to visit.

She gave you this little steel button fob years ago. Yet again, her words echo in your head. _This is your, “press in case of Homelander” button, kiddo. The other three mothers have them too. It pings a satellite, sends a message._

You asked her what it does. 

_Summons help. That’s all you need to know. And even if I’m six feet under, my successor will know what it means. Keep it with you, always._

You hear raised voices coming from the trees behind your home, as though your kids are shouting at each other. But you cannot make out the words.

There is a muted tittering of birds. You hear them fly off when your kids approach.

Soon the screen door bangs open. Grace enters first. She cleans her brown hiking boots on the mat and walks over to the kitchen sink. You catch the scent of tree sap, as though it has soaked into her blue jeans. 

_She looks,_ you think, _every bit the art student. Except for those leaves in her hair._

She wears a yellow and white beaded necklace and a shirt of the same colors, with yellow-gold polish on her fingernails to match. Two of the nails are not solid in color, but emblazoned with a design like a sunflower. She wears rings on both hands, on the ring and pointer fingers. Thick, intricate rings encircle her thumbs as well.

Over the shirt, Grace wears an unbuttoned plaid flannel top with the sleeves rolled up to the elbows. It is a checkered pattern of white and yellow, reminding you of daisies. On each wrist, a colorful assortment of beaded bracelets. Her shoulder-length, windblown blonde hair is kept in check by a white baseball cap, worn backwards. A few stray leaves are still stuck to the end of her tresses. Pine needles adorn her shirt.

She leans her back against the sink and crosses her arms over her chest. Her lips purse and her eyes harden.

Her brother David follows after her. He closes the screen door behind him and takes his seat at the kitchen table across from you. His back is to the stainless steel refrigerator. 

They have the same blue eyes. _His_ eyes. His blonde hair.

David wears jeans and boots as well, and a simple black t-shirt. His hair is cut in a shaggy style that has always reminded you more of a loose pixie cut than the structured, well-combed, short hairstyle that one might associate with a traditional man--particularly a businessman or politician. You have seen his hair flow in the wind, and now it has caught its own share of small leaves. When he shifts his head, the segments of his hair rearrange themselves. 

Over the years you have heard other parents mutter that his hair might as well be a rainbow flag. As though he were announcing that he’s gay, simply by wearing his mane in the style he likes best. But he doesn’t care. He’s never made a secret of being gay. As for you, his mother...he never even needed to tell you. You weren’t surprised when he introduced you to his first boyfriend. You just knew.

A stray twig falls to the kitchen floor. You are accustomed to such things by now. Far better that they have the woods as an outlet, than fly around where someone could see them. Supes drew public attention, and public attention might draw the people you came to New Zealand to escape.

Grace fidgets and casts her eyes at her twin brother for a moment, as though eager to talk but wanting him to begin the conversation. You decide to do it yourself. 

“I heard you two arguing outside. You okay?”

David meets your eyes. “Grace says she’s tired of beating around the bush with you all the time. We were going to wait until the next time GG came to visit...you know, sit down with you both at once. But since that’s not happening now--”

Grace makes a cutting gesture with her right hand. Her voice breaks, as though the words are bursting forth under too much pressure. 

“Homelander.” Her eyes meet yours. “Just say it, David. _Homelander._ He's all over the movies, the television. He looks exactly like we do and we have the same powers. You won’t tell us our father’s name. But did you really think we'd never figure it out?”

You have imagined this moment a thousand times over the years. But it was always on their eighteenth birthday, and you never had to do it alone. 

When you imagined having this conversation, Grace Mallory was at your side. Next to her you imagined the young man you have never met in person. Ryan, Homelander's eldest son.

_But GG is gone._ You think. _And they won’t wait two more years, will they?_

Alone beneath the gaze of their sharp blue eyes, so like their father's...you find that your strength deserts you for the moment. You bury your face in your hands and begin to sob. Your shoulders shake.

“I’m sorry. I’m _so sorry._ ”

You feel the warmth of David’s hand upon your arm. Grace steps forward and rests one palm on your shoulder. You hear a chair slide back as she takes her seat at your left, with David sitting across from you.

The words pour forth. “ _How_ could I just tell my kids this? Just look you in the eye and say that he hit my building like a drone strike and I woke up tied to his bed, and eventually he put twins in me. Your Godmother helped us escape. How do you tell someone that you love so much...the whole story? He took women...seven of us...like he was harvesting wombs off a damn tree…”

You hear David’s chair scrape against the hardwood floor as he rises from it, then returns to it with a clear glass in hand. The outside is sprinkled with droplets from being hastily filled in the sink. 

He sets it down on the table in front of you and gives you a soft smile. “Mom, drink some water before you pass out. No, don't try to talk. I can hear your pulse. It doesn't sound good. Breathe a little.”

You take small sips from the glass. The tightness in your chest begins to fade. 

Grace presses on.

“Seven?” She leans toward you. “You always asked GG about the other _three_ women, and Ryan with the dead mother.”

David does a double-take in her direction and his features form a wry smile. “Grace...did you have to give the game away like that?”

The picture begins to become clear in your mind. “You listened in on us? Talking after you went to bed?”

Your daughter rolls her eyes. “Super hearing over here, remember? But did I really need it?” She begins to tick points off on her polished fingers. “You used to be American but if you see one of those American superhero movies on TV, you leave the room. You talk in your sleep. Yes...his name, even. You say it. As well as ‘Stormfront,’ ‘Nazi’ and ‘Lebonsborn.’”

David nods. His hands come to rest on the table and he leans back. His eyes are not on your face but on your torso--on, you know, the heart that beats in your chest. David has told you more than once that his Super senses could make him the best doctor who ever lived, able to watch a heartbeat and see a tumor in the patient’s flesh. He plans on attending medical school, while Grace wants to become a director.

“The only time you really let your shoulders relax was when GG used to visit.” David shrugs. “So we pretended to be asleep. We heard you.” 

He glances at the small steel fob on the table. “We looked through the walls and saw her give you that button.”

“I am so sorry.” You take a long gulp of water and set the glass down upon the table with a quiet _thunk._ “I really had no idea how, or when, your powers would develop. I just said...exercise in the woods and see what you can do. I was trying to protect you, and I failed at it.”

Grace shakes her head. “That’s bullshit, Mom, and you know it. You protected us fine. He isn’t here, is he?”

You find that all you have to do is fill in the gaps. Seven women taken by Homelander for breeding, one for each day of the week. After his first son, Ryan, escaped his clutches, Homelander wanted more kids to replace him.

And then, four women in a Vought maternity ward were sprung from it by people who worked for Mallory. Each one going to a different country, for safety's sake with no details about where the others were. Mallory eventually gave you three first names but no countries to identify them. Greta, Aaron and Gabriel. They are all Super, like your kids, and the same age. That eldest son, Ryan, is now twenty-four.

“I wanted you both to have as normal a life as possible.” You finish. “When you’re not exercising out _there,_ where you fly around and punch down trees.”

Grace leans back in her chair and laces her fingers behind her head. Stretching, getting comfortable. Her eyes focus on her fraternal twin brother for a moment, and then on you once more. 

“Old people always think they can keep us in a perfect little bubble, and it never works.”

She doesn’t break your gaze. Her voice rings through the kitchen, reminding you not for the first time of a passionate movie director addressing her actors. “You're terrified of him. You hate him. It's all over your face. I'm the daughter of a raping war criminal. Mom, I've seen your…” 

She lowers her arms to her sides, and then lifts her right hand to make a brief gesture at her own stomach. “Your ‘H.’ He branded you and you scream in your sleep. It’s pretty obvious.”

Your hand flies to your belly, out of habit. You feel the old scar through the cotton fabric of your sundress. “You weren't supposed to...I don't change in front of you, I always try to keep it covered.”

“You don’t have to, you know.” Her lips begin to form a wry smile. “I know, I'm supposed to tie myself up in knots over this. But--”

David rests one hand on Grace’s shoulder. “That…” He always speaks slower than his sister does, you think. Softer. At times he talks as though his words are heavy. “Isn’t the best choice of words, is it?”

You burst out laughing and wipe your eyes with the back of your hand. The tension drains from your shoulders as you smile at your little ones. _Not so little anymore,_ you think. _And so strong...not just their fists but their hearts. I should have known._

_They have each other._

Grace’s fair cheeks redden with a blush but she continues. “I mean, am I supposed to be like…what's his name, the guy with the laser sword in that twentieth century movie you showed us when we were kids? ‘ _You're my father? No, that's not true, that's impossible_ ’? And then I cry 'nooooo' and fall down the weird chute thingies? Because I'm not going to.”

It takes you a moment, but you realize what she is thinking of. “ _Empire Strikes Back_ , you mean. Luke Skywalker. The big reveal. 'Luke, I am your father...'”

Grace shrugs her flannel-clad shoulders. “Whatever. He couldn't see black helmet's face on a movie poster downtown. He couldn't see it at all, or he would have known. Hey, that’s a guy with my face! Or I have his face. He can choke people with his mind, and I can lift fucking rocks with my mind! That should have been a clue, shouldn’t it? They had the same powers, just like I have Homelander's. I can fly and cut trees down with my eyes. There ya go.”

“Black helmet...um...Darth Vader.” Your smile widens, in spite of yourself. You feel as though the storm clouds around your heart are dissipating. Your children’s warmth is burning them away. 

David speaks up. He tosses his head back, blonde tresses dancing. “You kept staring at us during that scene. The hero is finding out that the evil Imperial is his father, and you're staring at us. We didn't forget that for a while, you know.”

You look down at the table. “I didn't realize I was being that obvious about it…”

“You never do.” You look up to see a proud grin on your daughter’s face. “Why do you think I love movies so much? You can watch a person’s reaction to the screen, and learn what makes them tick. People watch movies, I watch _them._ I can literally see their hearts speed up, remember? I can sit in a movie theatre watching the people and smelling their adrenaline. When they look at the screen their faces are...like a treasure map. Shows you where the emotion is buried.”

You bring your hands up to your own face, hiding it for a moment. But you shake off your embarrassment and meet both of their eyes in turn.

“I love you. Both of you, so much. You’re handling this better than I am.”

“Ghenghis Khan.” Grace waves one hand as though she is tossing the name into the warm spring air. Her colorful beaded bracelets dance upon her wrist. “The warlord. Five hundred concubines, who knows how many kids...did they really _all_ have an identity crisis over it?”

David smiles at his sister, then at you. “We've been talking about this for a while. What she's trying to say is that he has millions of descendants. But there was really only one Ghenghis Khan. It's DNA, it's not _you_. We don't have a father in the way that actually matters. So? Some of our friends do, and some don't. I have friends with two fathers and with zero. We make do.”

You meet both sets of eyes in turn. “How long have you two been talking about this?”

Your sixteen-year-old twins glance at one another. David shakes his head. “I don’t even know.”

“I'm sorry.” You sigh. “We had a plan. That is, GG and Ryan did. On your eighteenth birthday, your eldest half-brother plans to...well, fly here. He’ll do the same for the three others when their days come. Drop out of the sky, tell you the whole story. Doing it earlier felt too much like I would be grooming child soldiers to defeat their father.” 

Grace’s eyes harden and she raises her eyebrows. “We are _not_ children.”

“Okay, teenage soldiers.”

David reaches for his sister’s hand and gives it a reassuring squeeze, then turns back to you. “Fair enough. You keep looking at your phone, do you have a picture of Ryan?"

You shake your head. "No. GG showed me his face on her own phone. She didn't give me a picture to keep. All I know is, he has one hell of a story to tell."

You paraphrase it as best you can. A son born of rape and then hidden from the rapist, raised by his mother Becca in some sort of isolated place. Until he was eight, and Homelander found him. 

“Stormfront, and him. They tried to take Ryan as their own...and it ended with him using his laser eyes on that damn bionic bitch. She isn't in the public eye like Homelander anymore, but if you saw her you would know that she's got steel prosthesis for arms and legs. And _he's_ the reason. But unfortunately, his mother died too.

“GG found a family back in the U.S. to take care of him, but he wasn't about to call anyone else Mom and Dad right after that. He called them Aunt and Uncle. The other kids, his cousins. That worked for him.

“What you had with GG, Ryan has with a man named Billy. Except even closer I think. Billy would visit often, and as he got older Billy taught him how to fight. By the time he was your age, he was calling Billy his Dad. I saw a picture of them together, one from this year. Billy has dark hair and Ryan's is just like yours, but they both had a beard and they were both wearing Hawaiian shirts. I think Ryan wants to be just like him. Like the man he calls Dad.”

You meet both sets of blue eyes in turn. “I guess I don’t have any secrets from you, do I? You know that I go to sleep at night imagining the day all of Homelander's kids are old enough to take him on. Together. GG told me that this Billy does too. He has his reasons. Homelander leaves so many bodies in his wake.”

You spread your hands out on the table, fingertips pressed against polished dark wood. “But...that’s not all you are, you know? You’re still teens with dreams and homework. You just happen to have Super powers as well.”

  
  
  
  



	2. Chapter 2: For Amber Waves of Grain

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Your kids depart for a long weekend with friends. You receive unexpected news.

**Chapter 2: For Amber Waves of Grain**

You stand beside your silver minivan. Your twins sit in the front seat. The seats behind them are stacked with coolers full of ice, sandwiches and sodas. The vehicle smells of sunscreen. It is early in the day but the air is already moist and warm. The sun beats down on your bare shoulders. You are wearing a flowery green sundress and matching flip-flops.

You smile at them through the open driver’s side window. “Have fun at Lake Tekapo. But Grace, remember...take all the footage you want, just keep your feet on the ground! No using yourself as a camera drone, as you always call it! Just because you’re in  _ the  _ woods doesn’t mean you’re in  _ our  _ woods. There’s always a hiker around the next corner. It’s not worth the risk.”

Grace tosses up both hands in an exaggerated gesture of frustration. But her face bears a wide smile. She peers at you through dark sunglasses from the driver’s seat. She wears a sundress similar to yours, but of a yellow design dotted with white daisies. She wears a simple white one-piece swimsuit beneath it. “I know, Mom, I know. Relax, we will be spending most of the time in our swimsuits with Kat and the others anyway. Can’t very well take a camera into a hot spring, can I? And I’m not making any videos in the sauna.”

You turn your gaze to your son’s bright blue eyes. He sits in the passenger seat of the car, clad in cargo shorts and a t-shirt the color of freshly-turned earth. He wears a necklace made by a local craftsman, a mix of polished wood and bone beads. “David, you have been very good about this lately...but please, don’t forget. Be careful about looking at people!  _ You _ know that you’re watching two guys smoke and using your Super vision to compare their lung damage, but  _ they _ think that you are just staring at them.”

He smiles at you and tosses his blonde hair back from his forehead. “Someone trying to smoke cigarettes...in a sauna? I’d like to see that…”

“You know what I mean.”

“Of course I do, Mom. Don’t worry about us. Love you. See you Tuesday.” 

You step back from the minivan and wave as they drive off. You can hear the white gravel of this long rural road crunching beneath the tires. No dust is kicked up, and the tiny stones are still wet from a warm summer rain. 

A long stripe of verdant green marks the middle of the road, beneath where the center of a vehicle sits. Lush grass and patches of ferns mark either side of the road. On your left, you see a long row of maple trees. On your right, a simple wooden fence.

The sky is dotted with small clouds and there is a light drizzle of rain. You barely notice a bit of moisture in the air anymore. 

You left your dark green beach bag on the front porch and you take a moment to grab it. You sling it over your shoulder. Your feet find a familiar path along the perimeter of the woods.

It is Thursday morning. The first week of summer for your kids, and they are heading off to Lake Tekapo’s hot springs to spend time with friends. 

You have visited them yourself many times, as your rural home is in the long stretch of countryside between Christchurch and Lake Tekapo.

They will have the car until Tuesday morning but you don’t care, you usually only make the long drive into town once a week. Your weekly run for supplies, yoga class, and sometimes a hookup. A monthly stipend from GG’s people helps with your expenses but you also do freelance work writing grant proposals. You do have a college degree after all, even though you got it under a name that is now officially dead.

_ Those Christchurch hookups. _ You think. You feel a rueful smile tug at the corners of your lips as you walk an old, well-worn path to your favorite sunning spot by the creek. It’s almost a thirty-minute walk from your home, but the ground is level and you have always kept in shape.  _ That surfer fellow last week called me, “The MILF with the Minivan.” I suppose there are worse things to be.  _

You don’t remember exactly when you stopped looking for a romantic relationship. You dated a photographer for almost two years and your kids liked him well enough, but making him a lasting part of your life would have meant taking him into your confidence. He could hardly fail to notice your kids were Super, if he was around them enough. 

_ And I hated being naked with him. He kept staring at my scar. I told him not to ask and he didn’t, but he stared. _

_ If it’s a hookup...I can just invite the guy into my van, lift my sundress, then pin his arms over his head and ride him like a horse. Men are usually pleasantly surprised by that anyway. They don’t touch or see the ‘H’ on my stomach. _

_ After a while, it just gets easier to use the apps.  _ You reflect on the various popular dating apps as you reach the edge of the creek. You set down your woven beach bag, reach into it, and lift out your towel. Beneath the towel is your purse, with your cell phone and the ever-present steel button tucked safely within. Beside that, a paperback novel and a tall bottle of water. Your phone is set to “silent.”

You remove your sundress, bra, and panties and stretch out on your towel. Beneath your towel there is soft earth and thick green grass. You have sunbathed many times here before. This is the same forest your kids exercise in, and from your sunning spot you can see the splintered remnants of a pine tree where one of their Super fists impacted the trunk. There is privacy here. No one is around for many kilometers but the birds. You hear them singing to each other in the thick branches of an oak tree on the opposite bank of the creek.

You begin to read your novel. You find that your eyes continue to drift from the pages and towards the treetops and blue sky above you. Soon, your eyelids droop.

_ I didn’t sleep much last night, did I?  _ You think.  _ But at least I finished that grant proposal. And the nightmares weren’t too bad.  _

You sling your left forearm across your eyes. Your right hand drifts to your breasts, sun-warmed and covered with a thin sheen of sweat. Soon you reach between your legs--not parting the folds with your fingers, simply stroking them. Teasing yourself.

You increase your pace. Your heat slowly builds. You grind your hand against your clit.

You try to fix the mental image of that surfer in your mind. You remember the sound of him, and the taste. The sparkle in his eyes when you grabbed his wrists with both of your hands and wrapped your legs around him in the backseat of your minivan. The hard muscles of his body against yours. 

Yet as you reach your peak, the mental image changes. 

His eyes glow red. Faces blur together. He smells like Homelander.

You wince, but don’t stop rubbing. You are used to this by now. Your hips buck and you climax, stifling your own moans with your left arm. Even though there is no one around to hear you.

You didn’t intend to fall asleep afterwards. Yet your sleep has been erratic for almost a week and the summer sun lays heavy upon you, making you drowsy. 

You awake. You sit up on your towel and reach for your water bottle. It is tepid on your tongue but refreshing. You put all of your clothes back on, and your shoes. You fish your cell phone out of your beach bag.

The icon of several text messages catches your eye. You recognize the first of three from other women you attend yoga class with. 

It reads, “Did you see this? It’s all over the news. It happened an hour from your house.”

You open the attached video clip and stare at the screen. Soon your heart is in your throat.

You see a bright green bus, the kind with long tinted windows that tourists use for scenic trips. The surface of the bridge beneath it is wet and the tires struggle to find purchase. It is too close to the edge and it teeters, about to pitch into the deep canyon beneath.

The camera shifts. The picture is blurry but you see two people in street clothes flying through the air. They grab on to opposite ends of the bus and lift it up together, one at the front end and one at the back. They set it back down on the road and shoot up into the sky.

They both wore gray hoodies drawn tight enough to cover most of their faces. But someone got a few seconds of video on their phone. All that one can tell from this video is that one of the Supers was male, the other female, and both in their teens.

You stuff your things into your beach bag. Your mind is racing. You sling the bag over your shoulder and begin to sprint in the direction of your house. 

You pause. You check the current time, and compare that to when the text message was sent to you.

Six hours ago.

Your knees feel like rubber. Your body shakes.  _ Who has seen this? And...how long does it take for a Supe to fly here? _

You race down the path, past clusters of ferns and old fence posts. Your lungs burn. 

You break through a clearing and gasp for breath. You begin to hear a faint crackling noise. You smell smoke. You turn the final corner, approaching your isolated rural home.

Your house is aflame. It is completely engulfed, smoke pouring out of every open window. There is a shimmer of heat in the summer air. 

Your head spins and you fall to your knees.  _ What is this? Why? Does it have anything to do with the news? What even could have started this?  _

Your phone is sweaty in your hand. You begin to dial the fire department. You’ll have to; it’s daytime and you are so far out in the sticks that you don’t think it will be seen by anybody.  _ At least it’s too damp for the fire to spread to the whole forest… _

Suddenly you feel as though a giant fist has punched you in the back. If that fist were somehow electrified, and so you were simultaneously hit with all the volts of a police Taser.

You are pitched forward into the air. Your arms flail. Your cell phone flies out of your grip and lands in a thick patch of ferns. Your beach bag lands beside it, the contents spilling out onto the grass.

The beach bag contains your purse. The purse where you always keep that shining steel button.

You land upon your back, the wind knocked out of your lungs. You gasp for breath.

Another electrical jolt hits your entire body. You scream. 

You feel your limbs thrashing as though you are in the grip of a seizure. Your white flip-flops sail off of your feet. Your hands form fists and beat against the ground. The back of your head aches and throbs as though it has struck something hard.

You can only stare up at the blue sky above. You hear two sets of footsteps on the wet grass. They draw closer. You hear a woman’s high-pitched laugh. 

At last a face passes into your field of vision. She is to the right of you and standing above, looking down at you in the dirt. The expression on Stormfront’s face makes you think of a mountain, staring down upon a pebble and smiling. Her pale skin is flushed. Her short hair is tousled. Her deep brown eyes shine with triumph.

She rests both hands on her hips. She wears the same sort of textured bodysuit you have seen her in before, with accents that resemble lightning bolts and American flags rendered in muted grayscale. 

Her hands are made of steel. She looks almost as though she has a normal body, and simply decided to have herself steel-plated from mid-biceps to fingertips, then again from mid-thigh to the tips of her toes. It is hard to tell where the steel body begins and the Super suit ends, or the other way around.

You try to speak. She raises one metal hand and lightning arcs from her fingers once more. It strikes you in the temple. The world goes black.


	3. Chapter 3: For Purple Mountain Majesties

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You awaken with steel fingers gripping your face.

**Chapter 3: For Purple Mountain Majesties**

  
  


“You should be _so_ grateful to me.” A hard steel hand grips your chin and shakes you to wakefulness.

Your mind reels. Your eyes won’t focus. Stormfront’s face swims in front of you. 

You are prone now, not supine. She is crouched down so that her eyes are level with yours. You feel the texture of rough tree bark beneath the front of your bare torso. Sunlight beats down on your naked back.

You try to move. You feel the unyielding pressure of some kind of thick rope around your wrists, then your ankles. You are tied in place as though your limbs are hugging the felled tree trunk beneath you.

There is a layer of cotton between your skin and the bark. You realize that your clothes have all been removed and your sundress is spread out under you, shielding you from the worst of the splinters but leaving you completely bare.

Stormfront’s high, prim voice continues. “We saw the video. Once we knew the name of the bridge in New Zealand, all we had to do was scan this area from the air. Only _our_ children could have left all these impact craters out in the middle of nowhere, with nothing around but that little house.”

You hear a rustle of tree branches behind you but she won’t allow you to turn your head by even an inch to look. The fuzzy edges around your vision begin to clear. Her face fills your whole field of view.

“Our Super children.” Stormfront laughs. “So many trees in splinters, so many furrows in the dirt exactly the size and shape of his eye lasers. Homelander was ready to rip you in half and tear this island apart looking for our son and our daughter. I stopped him. You should _really_ be grateful, you slut.”

You try to struggle against your bonds but nothing budges. You smell damp earth all around, mixed with your own fearful sweat. The tree trunk beneath you smells of pine sap. There is a tinge of ozone in the air from Stormfront’s electrical discharges.

One of her hands still grips your chin like a vise but you feel the other hand in your hair, then stroking your cheek. Metal fingers slide up and down your neck. 

“You see, last time we weren't smart enough about this. That's why I have these metal arms and legs here. We _have_ to be smart this time. We tore that house up instead. We ripped through your computers. Looking for everything we needed to know about _our_ kids.”

You see her cast her eyes behind you, and slightly to the right. You hear the green wood of a tree branch snapping. Wet leaves hit the forest floor.

She nods at someone, then turns her gaze back to you. _“Our_ daughter Grace mentioned on her social media that everyone would be back on Tuesday afternoon. They're obviously on some kind of outing with friends and we know when they'll be home. All that needs to happen now is that they come home, we are here, and you are not.”

There is a sound you can’t quite place, coming from the general direction Stormfront was looking in before. It reminds you of someone whittling, or carving something.

Her eyes bore into your own. She leans in even closer to you. You can smell her breath. It makes you think of spicy sausages and strong liquor. Her lips are painted a deep shade of red.

“If we _do you in_ right now, like you deserve? Well, then they'll never listen to anything we have to say. But if you're tied to a chair somewhere in the deepest levels of Vought Tower with a camera in your face…well, then we have leverage.”

A slow, confident smile spreads across her lips. She grips your chin tighter. “They won't even try to fight us. They will have to sit down and negotiate at least. I don't have any doubt that in time, my Super children will realize who they belong with. Their own people.”

She strokes your long hair for a moment. Then her fist clenches against your scalp at the crown of your head. She pulls hard, using your hair as a leash. “Homelander was ready to throw you over his shoulder and fly back to New York…”

She releases your chin and takes a hold of your face with both steel hands. Her grip tightens one fraction of an inch at a time. Her voice grows hard and the mirth drains from her face. “And then he saw David's room. And his social media page. And his closet. And his bookshelves.”

She rears her head back and spits in your face.

You feel her hot, slimy saliva dripping down your nose. You try to blink it out of one eye. 

“Yes. His bookshelves. Even the _special_ books that young men always hide in their rooms. Imagine how surprised David’s poor father was. That’s why he had to set your house on fire.”

_Oh my God…David._ All of the pieces slide together in your mind. Your whole body begins to shake. You thrash against the ropes, uselessly. _My poor son. They know he’s gay. If that’s what they did to the house, what will they do to him?_

Behind you, you hear tree branches breaking again.

“You little _bitch.”_ Her voice is barely a hiss. “You're such a bitch that you made him into one too. Grace, you haven't damaged her too badly. A Super movie director, that will be very useful once she learns to make the right sorts of movies. But you've turned _our_ son into a deviant. A degenerate. He's a traitor to his own manhood. You ruined him.”

She pauses. Stormfront takes a deep breath, as though drawing upon all of her emotional control simply to not snap your neck. 

She grits her teeth. “Homelander _will_ fly you back to the Tower. But he's not waiting any longer than it takes to cut and peel a few limbs from these trees...before he makes you scream. I convinced him to start using some branch switches on you, right here and now. It’ll hurt like hell but you’ll live. Like I said, you should be grateful to me. It's so much gentler than what he had planned...but if you die, we lose our leverage.”

The rustle of leaves behind you dies down. You hear a scraping sound.

“It's Thursday, and they are coming home on Tuesday. That's plenty of time to make sure that by the time they see you on that video camera…”

You hear a _whoosh_ noise in the air. It’s coming from somewhere close to your naked right hip.

“You're tamed, and good, and sorry for everything you did.” Stormfront finally releases her grip on your face and rises to her feet.

You bury your face against the bark and begin to sob.

“But he wants to start now, and I don't blame him. We've been waiting far too long for this. You stupid whore.”

Behind you and slightly to the right, you hear Homelander’s unforgettable baritone. He sounds strangely content. Pleased with himself. Somehow that is more frightening to you than if his voice had been thick with rage. 

“Hi there.”

You hear a _swish_ sound in the air. You feel a long, thin stripe of blazing pain across the middle of your thighs. The bite of the switch strikes the swell of your bottom. It hits your thighs again, and then slices across your shoulders.

At last you find your breath. You begin to scream.

“That’s right.” Homelander laughs. “Daddy’s home.”

  
  



	4. Chapter 4: Above the Fruited Plain

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Punishment and departure.

**Chapter 4: Above the Fruited Plain**

_Crack!_ The thin, flexible wood swipes downward in Homelander’s red-gloved hand. You feel it dig into the thickest part of your bottom, where the round swell of it points towards the bright blue afternoon sky.

It rises and falls a dozen times before you can even form a sentence.

“Sir! I’m so sorry. I betrayed you. I’m sorry Daddy.” You gasp out the words. 

It’s the same thing you’ve said for years, in your nightmares. Now you say it aloud without even thinking about it.

_Crack!_ The next blow lands above the first, setting a new set of nerves on fire.

He strikes the same spot until it is welted, then moves a fraction of an inch upward and begins the process anew.

You crane your neck to focus on his face. His eyes are on his target, the precise strip of naked skin that he is punishing. His blonde hair is still combed back in the same manner as before. His fair skin has not visibly aged in the past sixteen years. 

As he lashes you, his eyes grow wider and his focus looks almost manic. As though nothing else exists in this moment.

He drops one switch and picks up another. It is long, perfectly straight, and peeled.

The best switches are made from water sprouts, you remember. One only has to cut a large limb off of a tree, leaving a stump. Around the perimeter of the remaining stump the tree will sprout several small, thin, flexible limbs that have a high water density. Hence the name. They can be woven into baskets, or peeled and used as switches.

You don't even recall where you learned that. Probably in an old book. It occurs to you that as long as people have been making baskets, they have also been making pain for one another.

_Or more accurately… making pain for their wives, their students, their kids, their slaves, their prisoners, and their criminals. Whoever is on the receiving end of the switch._

_Or...making pain for their dogs. Maybe,_ you think, _that's the most accurate description of how a Supe fascist views everyone who isn't either one of those things. Their dog._

“I’m so sorry I took them from you. Took your kids from you.” You gasp. “Please don’t hurt David. He’s young, he doesn’t know any better, he might grow out of it--”

Homelander raises his arm and slashes it down. He paints your skin with lines of fire. The switch bites into you five times, ten, twenty. Fifty. Seventy...you lose count. You hear the _swish_ of each blow through the air before it lands. You yelp and scream out your contrition every time you catch your breath. “I’m sorry Sir, please Daddy…” 

Neither one of them acknowledge your words. You see the vague shape of Stormfront approaching him from the left, while his right hand wields the implement.

Her hands move over the bulge in his tights. You see her kissing his neck and nibbling at his ear. 

Whatever she whispers makes his blows land even harder and faster. You shut your eyes and sob against the felled tree trunk beneath you.

Finally he pauses. You look up at Homelander. The afternoon slant of the sunlight makes the accents of his Super uniform cast long shadows. Golden eagles at each shoulder leave shadows in the shape of a blade. The muscles beneath his tight dark blue suit are accented by the angle of the light. The pace of his breath quickens. 

He drops the branch switch in his hand and tugs off his gloves. He sets them on the felled log beside your waist and runs a bare hand over the worst of your welts. You gasp and shiver in response.

They both gaze down at you. You watch their eyes roam the intricate pattern of red lines that mark your body from the top of your shoulders to the backs of your knees. 

Their hands are all over each other, groping and teasing. Their eyes are wide and their breathing is quickened. The sight of your humiliation has driven them both into a frenzy. You wonder if they will fall onto the grass together, or make love in the sky as Homelander once mentioned they did.

He gives a low, guttural moan into her ear. “Well. Hungry for a little spitroast, my dear?”

Stormfront opens her mouth and laughs. A moment later she is shucking off her tight pants and simple black thong. You hear the slap of leather on wood as she lays her clothes across the log a few inches from your face. A cushion of sorts, which she then sits upon. 

She sits with one leg on either side of the felled tree they bound you to. Her thighs are spread wide. Her slit glistens wetly in the sunlight. Her hair down there is thick and dark but neatly trimmed.

Her smooth steel hands grip either side of your head. She pushes your face into her pussy and grinds against you. “Show me…” Stormfront hisses, her voice thick with arousal. “How sorry you are.”

The marine taste of her fills your mouth. Her hair tickles your nose.

You extend your tongue. You try to focus on what little you know about how to do this. There were a few times in college that you ventured between another woman's legs. But that was after parties, and always in a haze of intoxication and giggles. Not with your body bound to a log in the woods, and the welts on your back throbbing. 

Back then you used your hands, unavailable to you now. You just rubbed your friend the way you had rubbed yourself for years, and lavished kisses on her soft, smooth neck. She smelled of lavender shampoo. Her lips tasted of jello shots and cheap beer.

Now, you have your face pushed between the legs of the woman you hate. Hate with the force of ten thousand suns.

_You goddamn hypocrite._ You think. _You judge my son, and then stick my face in your Nazi kitty?_

But you are not surprised. It is clear to you that they do this often, and that she sees it as sharing a toy with her lover. Not as making love with a woman.

_They probably never do this with another Supe. Only to us mud people. The common folk._

You begin to paint the alphabet with your tongue, covering a wide area. Her steel fingers work themselves deep into your hair. 

You hear a rustling sound behind you. The rope around your ankles is loosened. You feel Homelander’s strong hands on the lower half of your body, adjusting it into position.

He grabs your hips with both hands and drives his cock into you. Cries burst forth from your throat, muffled by Stormfront’s sweaty flesh. You feel his Supe suit rub the whipped backs of your thighs. The material scrapes against your welts.

He penetrates you hard, grunting with each thrust. His fingers dig in where the switch bit deep. Tears run down your face and soak into Stormfront’s skin.

Every time your attention on Stormfront's wet folds begins to lag, you feel her steel grip on your hair tightening again. Reminding you of your duty.

Soon her quickened breaths become moans of delight. You stop laboring to cover a wide area with your tongue and focus all of your attention on her swollen clit.

She gasps with pleasure and bucks against your face. She grinds at you for almost a minute until her pace slows. Her body relaxes from the throes of climax. Her steel fingers release their hold on your scalp and hair. Her juice coats the lower half of your face.

Homelander releases his iron grip on your hips and reaches one hand around to rub between your legs. His fingers find either side of your clit and move side-to-side at a frantic pace. 

You twist and grind against him. Your own reaction surprises you, even as your scream catches in your throat and your orgasm shakes your body. You feel like a drum, beaten so long and at such a steady rhythm that it has no choice but to vibrate in response.

You hear him grunting hard. His pace quickens. You feel as though each thrust is getting closer to breaking you in half. 

You scream the words aloud. “Daddy, thank you! Thank you for making me come, Daddy. I love you. I have thought about you every single day for years. And I’m so sorry Sir.”

A roar bursts forth from his throat. His body shivers. He drives into you one last time and collapses against your back. His Supe suit feels wiry against your punished back and bottom. He pulses inside you, then begins to soften.

You feel as though your whole body has turned to jelly. Your backside throbs with raw pain.

You hear the rustle of clothing as they extricate themselves from you. Soon their Super suits are back in place. You hear a wet sound when they kiss one another again.

Homelander has put his gloves back on. He kneels down beside you to untie your wrists. Soon you are no longer bound, but you remain still. 

His face is level with yours and his ice-blue eyes bore into you. You feel the texture of stiff red leather as he strokes your hair, then your face. 

“You. Be good now.” He plants a single kiss on your cheek and rises to his feet. 

You hear Stormfront’s voice behind him. “Well, that was fun but she's kind of a mess. Do we really want to fly her over the ocean all the way back home like _this?_ There are Vought buildings everywhere. The one in Sydney may not be home, but all we need is a secure room with a camera. It’s much closer. Besides, the kids probably expect us to go back to America. They shouldn’t know where she is.”

Homelander taps your bare arm with the red toe of his boot. “Get up.”

Your neck feels like it was struck with a mallet. Your muscles cramp when you try to move. Every fiber in your body protests. It takes you a long time to rise to your feet.

You hear the familiar tittering of birds in the treetops, and the trickle of a nearby stream. The sound reminds you of your own thirst. You have screamed yourself hoarse and your mouth tastes like sweat. 

“Sir…” You realize you’re not sure what honorific Stormfront prefers. Back before you escaped her Lebensborn program she wasn’t in the habit of addressing you directly. You were a womb with legs to her. You weren’t supposed to talk.

You blurt out, “Um...heroes. May I please have some water before we leave? The stream is just over there.”

Homelander faces his Super lover and casts the words over his shoulder. His back is to you. You face the primary colors of his cape. The ones that haunt your dreams. “Sure, and clean yourself up too. I’m the one who has to carry you to that Australian city. Can’t have you making me stink.”

You take slow steps towards the water. The grass is cool and soft beneath your bare feet.

You wade into the stream. The cold water stings where you were beaten but then it numbs the pain a bit, or at least distracts your senses. You fill your mouth with water and splash it on yourself.

An irregular square shape catches your eye. It is dark green against a patch of bright green ferns. 

You freeze in place. Your breath stops for a moment. 

Your beach bag. The bag with your purse, your cell phone…

And GG’s gift to you. Grace Mallory’s, “press in case of Homelander” button. 

You cast your eyes back to the two Super lovers. They are talking to one another, not even glancing in your direction.

You take slow, mincing steps toward your bag. Twigs and sharp stones scrape at your feet but you scarcely notice it. _Five more steps. Two more steps._

You kneel upon the grass beside your gym bag. It makes a slight rustling sound as you reach in. You spot your cell phone a pace away, fallen face-up in a cluster of bright green ferns.

Your fingers find your purse and the button within it with practiced ease, as though you are finding your own familiar bathroom in a dimly-lit hallway at night. Your fingers grasp steel, no larger than a car’s key fob.

You squeeze the button. You can feel it click into place. 

You release it from your wet, sweaty grip. You lean on your right hand and reach for your cell phone with your left--

A red boot drives your forearm into the ground. You didn’t see or hear him, he was just upon you in an instant. 

You feel your radius snap like a twig. A scream bursts forth from your lungs.

You hear the electric sound of Homelander’s eyes. He grinds your arm into the dirt. His eyes burn red with barely-controlled rage.

He steps off of you. Homelander reaches down to pick up your cell phone. His back straightens so that he towers over you, holding your phone aloft. 

He crushes it with one bare hand. You hear it crunching in his grip. Shards of plastic rain down onto the grass. 

You clutch your forearm to your naked chest. “I didn’t make a call.” You blubber. You stare up into his eyes. “I didn’t call. I didn’t text anyone. You can tell if I’m lying, right? It’s one of your powers. I saw the phone and I couldn't help myself. I just couldn’t. _It’s instinct. I'm his mother!_ All I could think was that I had to warn David. Please don't hurt him. Even if he's gay, he's still your son.”

He stares down at you for a long moment. You watch his eyes pass from glowing red to the more-human blue. Their electric hum fades from your ears. His jaw clenches tight.

“No. You’re not lying. You’re just disobedient. And you really should know better by now. I found you, didn’t I?”

“Yes Daddy I’m sorry.” You whimper.

He reaches down and lifts you up in his arms, as though you are almost weightless. He turns about and you see Stormfront tromping through the grass after him.

“If you loved him,” She sneers, “You wouldn’t have ruined him like that would you? Dumb slut.”

Homelander is holding you against his muscled body. You feel his shoulders shrug. “Well, I’ll definitely have to take her to Sydney to patch that arm up.”

You glance down at your left forearm. One of the two bones within it is broken and it feels as though it was pummeled with a heavy stone. You find yourself curling up into a ball against him, cradling your damaged arm. You bury your face in his chest and blubber more apologies.

“I’ll meet you there. Let me scout around a bit.” You hear Stormfront’s haughty tone but do not turn your face towards her. You see only the dark blue of his uniformed chest. “As soon as you get her presentable and in front of a camera, send me some photos. They should see Mommy here looking clean, but dressed like an inmate and kept in a Vought cell. Not standing there naked with her arm broken and my juices on her face.”

Homelander holds you in the cradle of his arms and leaps upward, shooting into the clouds. You wrap your good arm around his neck and cling onto him. Your body is still bare. The rushing wind chills your naked skin.

_What did the button do?_ You screw your eyes shut and just try to breathe through the pain. _What help is coming?_

You wonder if that help will be of any use to you where you are headed. Or to your kids, blissfully unaware with their friends at Lake Tekapo.

  
  
  
  



	5. Chapter 5: America, America

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You finally see your daughter.

**Chapter 5: America, America**

You are laying face-down on a thin blue institutional mattress, of the sort used in a jail. It has a rubbery, thick smell. Beneath it you feel the hard concrete surface of the pallet that serves as your bed. It is flush with the wall, sticking out like a shelf.

The air in the room tastes stale and filtered, as though you are in the depths of a vast building. Your body feels clean and dry. You have showered, washed your hair, and put on dark blue scrubs that resemble a prisoner’s jumpsuit. Beneath them you wear a bra and panties of crisp, starched cotton and thick white socks with textured soles. Your hair is swept up and out of the way.

Your left arm is sweaty in its white plaster cast. The broken radius doesn’t ache anymore, it’s been set back in place. The bruises around it are tender. The cast immobilizes your wrist and ends right before the elbow.

When you slept the first two nights it was on your belly, with your cheek against your thin white pillow. Now your neck aches. The marks of your beating made even sitting down feel like another round of punishment the first night, and sleeping on your back would have been impossible. Now you are sore but much less raw.

You think it is Sunday but you are not certain. There is no clock or calendar in your cell. You can still taste the dry bread from the ham sandwich you ate for lunch. Even this was delivered in a manner reminiscent of a correctional facility--upon a tray, pushed through a slot in the bottom of the door.

You close your eyes, and think of David and Grace. 

You hear a beep and the steel door on the opposite end of the room swings open. Your eyes go wide.

Homelander. 

Instead of sitting up or rising to your feet, you kneel on the hard cement floor. The position makes your welts ache but you grit your teeth against the pain. 

Your eyes are cast down. You don’t recall deciding to take this position for him, it just felt like the safest instinct.

“Showtime.” His deep voice fills the white-painted, windowless cell. You hear the heavy door grind against the concrete as he shuts it behind him. 

You glance up to see that he has a thin, rectangular tablet computer in his right hand and a dark blue duffel bag in his left. The red stripes of his cape are bright against the white wall behind him.

The cell is not much larger than a common cubicle, and there are no windows. The walls are a featureless white. There is a bed pallet with a mattress on it, with a small white pillow and a dark blue blanket. Beside the foot of the bed, a flat surface protrudes out from the wall with a small metal chair beneath it. It looks like it was designed to serve as a tiny desk.

Next to the desk there is a steel toilet and sink. Then the dark blue shape of Homelander, standing in front of the locked cell door.

He takes a few steps toward you and looks down. His eyes indicate the flat screen in his right hand. “Now, Stormfront is on the other end of this tablet talking to my daughter. Grace will see you as soon as I push this button.”

_Now?_ You wonder. _It's not Tuesday yet, is it? And why only Grace, where's David?_

He takes a step back from you. He sets the duffel bag down right in front of your bent knees. 

“But before I push it…remember the first time you called me Daddy.”

“Yes Sir. Back in your cabin.”

You hear the faint clatter of plastic and look up to see that he has set the tablet down upon the small desk near the foot of the bed. Both hands now free, he reaches blood-red gloved fingers out and cups your cheeks. His thumbs stroke the soft skin of your face. You hear the faint squeak of stiff, hard leather.

He lifts your chin, making you meet his eyes. A small grin plays across his lips.

“Do you remember why?” His blonde-brown eyebrows raise.

You feel yourself turning red. You bite your lip and wince. How could you forget presenting yourself to him? Being made to ask him over and over again to be the first man to use you anally...until he finally did. You remember the texture of smooth wood when your face was pressed against the hardwood planks of his cabin floor. You can almost hear your own words echo in your mind. The way you babbled, and called him Daddy for the first time.

His laughter spares you from having to answer, at least.

“I should have done that more.” His cold blue eyes search your own. “It made you respect me. Remember that before I turn on the video. Be good for us. You know what I mean. Because I am going to teach you some respect either way. But…”

He steps a pace or two back from you and makes a gesture towards the duffel bag, indicating that you should open it.

You reach for the zipper and slide it open. You stare into the bag’s open mouth.

There is lubricant, an enema bulb, a policeman's electric baton, a rolled-up leather belt, and half a dozen other things in there. You spot a tube of burn cream, and a long white rod made of nylon that resembles a synthetic switch. It has a black rubber grip handle.

He crosses his arms over his broad chest, feet spread wide. You can see his perfect white teeth as he grins. “So the question is…do you need to learn a _little_ respect, or a _lot_? Will I need to use everything I brought with me, or just some of it?”

You shudder and begin to crawl towards his gold-trimmed boots. “Sir, I--”

He steps around you and sits upon the bed. He picks up the tablet again and motions for you to sit right beside him. “No, no, I'm not deciding yet. I'll decide after I see you behave yourself on this call.”

You take your seat next to Homelander, close enough to notice that he smells of fresh soap and his thick blonde mane still bears a trace of dampness. As though he showered recently. You wonder if he had to wash the blood off again. 

He reaches behind you for the pillow and lays it across your lap. His eyes narrow. “Keep your cast under _this._ I don’t want to have to use everything I brought with me. Too messy.”

You give him a frantic nod and tuck your left forearm beneath this cotton shield. 

He lifts the tablet so that the screen is before the both of you, and taps the button at the bottom.

You gasp out Grace’s name. She is standing in the woods next to Stormfront. Their two familiar faces fill up the screen, with yourself and Homelander in a smaller window in the bottom right corner.

Grace’s long blonde hair falls in her face. When she pushes it back with one many-ringed hand you see her features are clouded with rage. She almost bares her teeth at Stormfront. “You...put my mother…in a prison?” Her eyes blaze a bright electric red for a moment but she keeps it under control.

“She committed a crime, Grace.” The black-haired Supe replies in a smooth voice. “She stole you from Homelander. But she’s alive, she’s all right. You don’t want to do anything that would put her in danger, do you?”

Your eyes are glued to your daughter’s image. She is wearing a two-piece yellow swimsuit and cutoff jeans, and looks as whole and uninjured as she did when they drove off in your minivan. 

The sight of her makes you break into a wide grin. Your right hand flies to your cheek, though you are careful to keep your left one tucked away.

“Grace. Are you all right? Are you hurt?”

She shakes her head. “I’m fine, Mom. I just found our house burned down and the Nazi you scream about in your sleep standing here...but yeah, otherwise I’m chilling.”

You see Grace’s chin jut out and her lips form an ironic grin. She casts a glance over at Stormfront. “She's a _lot_ shorter than I expected. I’m not really looking at master race material over here, am I? She’s almost small enough to drop-kick.”

A laugh bursts forth from your throat and you wipe tears from the corner of your eyes. _That’s my Grace._ You think. _Her pride...it’s the good kind. It gives me pride in her._

“David? Is David okay?”

“Mom...” Her voice slows down, as though the words have become laden with importance. “David is just fine. He is still visiting with his older American friend. You know, the guy with the short blonde beard? He always wears Hawaiian shirts. He has quite a few stories to tell.”

_American friend? He doesn’t know anyone from…_

_Ryan!_

You squeeze your eyes shut and make a screwing motion with your face, trying to conceal the swell of hope there from two sets of Super eyes. You feel as though you have become weightless. As though your chest is about to burst.

_Ryan._ You think. _Their eldest half-brother, the one that’s twenty-four now. That’s what the button did. Probably not him alone, but whoever it summoned...Ryan is with them. Ryan is there, in New Zealand with my kids!_

_Her damn steel hands are nowhere near David. David is with Ryan._

_GG, I wish I could hug you. One last time._

The handful of things you told your twins about Ryan, Grace is now repeating back to you. American. With a short blonde beard, wearing a Hawaiian shirt. Quite the story to tell.

Stormfront clearly doesn’t know that Ryan is with them, you think. Or she’d be talking about getting revenge for her lost limbs. 

Homelander leans over and whispers in your ear. You can feel his hot breath on your cheek. His hair tickles your skin. “Tell her you’re fine. You’re locked up but you’re being treated well. All that.”

“I’m okay.” You blurt out at the screen. “It’s like being in prison but everything is all right.”

Stormfront’s eyes are on your daughter, addressing her. “She’s in a Vought building, but it could be any of them. In Tokyo, Paris... anywhere. If we've got one thing, it's property. And she's been making you live in the ass end of nowhere, with no one appreciating how special you are.”

The Super lovers talk about what celebrity status would be like for Grace but you are barely listening to them. They spin tales of California houses on the beach, movie studios banging on Grace’s door to produce masterpieces. You are reminded of a dozen half-remembered fables that involve selling one's soul for riches.

“Your mother will be allowed to visit you, we just can’t have her trying to ruin your life anymore.” Stormfront finishes. “She wants you to keep your feet on the ground. We want you to fly.”

The screen goes dark. 

“Good.” Homelander gives you a small, approving nod and sets the tablet down upon the desk. 

He then reaches down to pick up the dark blue duffel bag. You flinch as he sets it on your lap. You push everything else out of your mind for the moment and focus only on appeasing him.

“You don’t need those inmate clothes anymore. Prepare yourself to learn some respect again. You know what I mean. If you behave then I won't have to use any of the _other_ things to teach you.”

You dash the few short paces to the steel sink and toilet, already pulling off your dark blue pants and top.

There is no privacy when you use the enema bulb to clean yourself, or when you smear your smaller hole with that greasy lubricant. You look up to see that at least his focus is on the tablet’s screen again, instead of on you. He doesn’t seem interested in observing this particular humiliation.

You leave all of your clothes atop the bag, beside the toilet and sink.

You approach Homelander naked and prepared. You kneel on the floor in front of him and press your lips against his right boot, and then his left. 

He rises to his feet. You feel his fist grip your hair at the scalp.

“You love me, my little snatch?” 

“Yes Daddy.” You gasp. He is pulling at your mane hard enough to hurt.

He presses your face into his left boot with his right fist, then releases his grip. “Work your way up. Slowly.”

Your lips and tongue go to work on the red leather. You kiss the wiry, tight-knit fabric of his Supe suit and worship the muscles beneath. Your left arm is in a cast but you stroke his knees, and then his thighs with your right hand. 

You lower the waistband of his pants and red underwear. You plant adoring kisses on his thighs, then his shaft. You circle the swollen tip with your tongue and then suck him deep, looking up at him as though you are worshipping a god.

He does not grab your head this time, or thrust hard at your face. He just watches you shower him with attention. His lips are pursed as though he is judging your performance, and not finding it quite satisfactory enough. 

At last he reaches down and taps your head once. “On the floor. All fours.”

You comply without even thinking about it. The concrete is cool against your sweaty palms and hard against your knees. You wonder if they will be bruised later.

You feel his fingers teasing your tight sphincter, then probing into it. His voice deepens. “This tamed you the first time, didn't it? I guess I should have done it every day. Until the lesson finally…”

You feel the head of his cock against your bottom-hole. He begins to push inward and you try to relax, to bear down against him. 

“Stuck.” He thrusts himself halfway in, pulls back, and then rams into your bottom so hard that you scream and slide to the floor. 

His every thrust sends waves of agony through you, like an electric shock. You scream his name again and again, your voice echoing off the concrete walls.

You are belly-down now but he doesn't stop. His hips smack against you at a surprisingly irregular pace. He will thrust hard and fast for a while, and then slow down to saw in and out of you. He is taking his time.

You wonder if he already climaxed once today. With Stormfront perhaps, making love in the sky? 

You are the opposite of that, you think. _Yet he wants us both_. _Maybe that's what people like this always want. Allies to meet him in the air, servants to adore him, and dogs to kick. To grind into the ground._

He speeds up his pace again. You squeal louder and you can feel tears leaking from your eyes.

“Well, you weren't lying. It is like being in prison, isn't it?” He laughs. 

“You had to know I would find you.” Still wearing his gloves, Homelander begins to grab and squeeze at your body. Manhandling your breasts, pinching your thighs, digging his fingers into your shoulders. 

“This is mine.” He growls. _“Mine.”_

“Yes Daddy!” You yelp, and whimper. “Yes Sir, all yours.”

“Mine to punish.” He strikes the right cheek of your buttock with an open hand. He hits hard enough for the slaps to echo in the room, and you are still tender from the switching. He hits you a dozen times on one side, then the same on the other, and repeats the process over again. You howl in pain. 

“Hurts, doesn't it? That means it's working. It's supposed to hurt. That is _your_ place in the world. And this _\--"_ He grunts and thrusts, towering over you. "Is _mine.”_

You bite down hard on your own knuckle. You don’t realize you have broken the skin until you see drops of your red blood dripping onto the cold white concrete floor. 

You reach for a corner of the dark blue duffle bag, pulling it close enough so that you can sink your teeth into the fabric instead of your own flesh. He keeps hammering away at you.

The colors--red blood, white floor, and blue bag swim together as your eyes water.

You clamp your jaw around the synthetic fabric. You feel as though he has been tearing into you for an hour, though you know that couldn’t be the case. At last you feel his body shiver. He collapses on top of you.

Much later you open your eyes and realize you are alone. You drifted into a stupor or sleep, and Homelander got up and left without waking you. Your body aches everywhere, both from his rough treatment and the unforgiving surface beneath you. 

You rise from the floor and lift yourself onto the sleeping pallet, at least there is a mattress of sorts and a blanket to wrap yourself in like a cocoon. You lay on your side, arms hugging your knees. The dark blue blanket is thin and cheap but wrapping it around yourself gives you some measure of comfort.

You shut your eyes and focus on the implications of what Grace said. 

_David is with Ryan right now. And the Supes don’t know that._

_Ryan...is no doubt bringing friends. GG’s people. And the Supes don’t know that._

You hide your face in the blanket…

And smile.


	6. Chapter 6: God Shed His Grace on Thee

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Supe sex leaves you injured and leads to an unexpected discovery.

**Chapter 6: God Shed His Grace on Thee**

The carpet beneath your face is a soft swirl of cream-and-gold, except where your sticky red blood has stained it. It smells like antiseptic with a hint of cedar oil.

You blink your eyes and try to focus. The opulent, garish room spins around you. Red-tinged saliva oozes from your mouth. You idly wonder how often the cleaners have to scrub blood out of expensive rugs in this building. 

You hear the _click_ of a bedside phone, the sort used to summon staff. Then Stormfront’s prim, proud voice. “The prisoner? Yeah, I kinda twisted her arm a little hard. Get the doctor to check her before you put her back in the cell.” 

_An understatement._ You think. You doubt your right shoulder was dislocated but she definitely tore something in there. 

You hear her hang up the phone, then the soft rustle of blankets as she sits down upon the bed. Homelander is already laying there, his Supe suit a mess from his exertions with the both of you. You hear him yawn and sigh.

The bed is large enough for five people to lay upon its soft white blankets. The headboard, footboard and accents shine in gold ornament, as though touched by Midas. A gilded chandelier too large for the room hangs from the high ceiling. The walls are a soft, creamy white. 

You hear both Super lovers getting comfortable in the bed, preparing to sleep. You know that it is between midnight and morning but you aren’t sure of the hour. 

Homelander and Stormfront settle down into the bed together and turn out the lights. You hear them kiss, and the rustle of blankets as they wrap their arms around one another.

They left you where you fell, when you collapsed facedown on the floor next to the armoire. It is decorated in the same gaudy gold design as the rest of the furniture.

This bedroom doesn’t suit either one of them, you think. It couldn’t be mistaken for their home. It is no doubt one of many units for travelling Vought executives, and remains empty for most of the time. This is simply a “grand” room. An upgrade from a more sleek, professional, stainless-steel-and-glass room design. 

You feel the texture of the carpet beneath your naked body, soft and thick. You feel bruised and sticky. Blood is leaking out of the corner of your mouth and where they broke the skin on your shoulders, buttocks and thighs. 

Everywhere, you ache and throb. Between your legs, in the back of your throat, and on every inch of skin they decided to punish. You hurt down to your bones.

You aren’t sure if you have been in the Vought Tower Sydney for three days or a week. Or longer. You have spent most of your hours in that windowless cell, then a few minutes at a time behaving yourself on irregular video calls. The only breaks in this were when Homelander made rough use of you in your cell or the Supe lovers summoned you to their bedroom. 

They never needed to say aloud that they were accustomed to bringing a “mud person” into their sexual play. That _you_ were that person for now, and they were simply putting you through familiar paces. That much was obvious.

Twice, Homelander lay on his back on that cream-and-gold bed. Stormfront stood beside the bed with a thin black synthetic cane in her hand, and used it to beat you while you rode him. Once he had his release, she threw you down and straddled your face until she had her own.

At times she allowed him to enter her from behind while she knelt on the bed. You lay underneath Stormfront, her legs on either side of your face. She always preferred to face him when they made love but this gave her great heights of pleasure, to be penetrated by her man while their toy ate her out. 

Often they began the night by ordering you to kneel before one of them, to worship and pleasure them with your mouth and hands. While you served one Supe the other lashed you with a thin, stinging strip of leather. It was doubled over and swung in one hand. Then they would trade places, sometimes more than once.

What they called the “spitroast” was the most common. You dreaded anal most in that position because it was so hard for you to pay enough attention to Stormfront. When your tongue lagged in its duty she would either pull hard at your hair or lay both steel hands on your naked back...and then shock your skin with her electrical powers. Never enough to do damage, but enough to make you whimper and shake.

You hear the door creak open and turn your head towards it. Light spills in from the bedroom hallway.

A woman wearing a black Vought Security uniform steps into your field of view. Her belt is bursting with armament--a gun, a baton, two types of handcuffs, and a Taser. 

She looks down at you but keeps her face carefully blank. Her eyes are sharp, her dark hair swept back into a tight ponytail. In her hands you see a small cloth bundle, dark blue and carefully folded. 

She sets the bundle down beside you and motions for you to get dressed. You recognize familiar prisoner’s clothing, with a thick institutional-looking white bra and panty set. On top, thick socks and prison-style slip-on shoes. 

It takes you a while to get dressed but she doesn’t seem to be in a hurry. You see her stifle a yawn and blink. 

The inmate scrubs feel crisp and starched against you. Your blood seeps into the fabric where they whipped your buttocks or back hard enough to break the skin. It isn’t more than a trickle but you will definitely be sleeping on your stomach again tonight. 

The hallway she leads you into is silent and deserted. Staff and elites alike appear to mostly be asleep at this hour. She guides you to an elevator and down many floors. She gives in to a yawn before the bell chimes and the door slides open.

You hear a sound like thunder above you. But it soon dies back.

You recognize the same medical wing of the building where your left forearm was put in its cast. You don't even notice that cast anymore, except when it bumps against something.

A bleary-eyed man in a doctor’s white coat and scrubs greets the woman from Vought Security. He has thin-rimmed glasses and light brown hair. They speak for a moment, then he sends her away. “I’ll buzz downstairs later, no need to keep you standing around. Get some coffee. Shift is almost over.”

“Thanks.” You hear a metal door shut behind you as she departs without a glance. The doctor motions for you to follow him into a small room.

The room has a clean, industrial scent. It shares the sterile look of countless medical facilities. You notice bright fluorescent lights overhead, and no decorations on the white walls. There are a few metal tables flush with the wall, a small sink, and several plastic chairs. 

You notice a pallet big enough for one person in the center of the room, with a thin cushion upon it covered by a paper sheet. Above its flat surface you see a piece of white hospital equipment that reminds you of a submarine’s periscope. You recognize it as an x-ray machine.

The doctor gestures for you to lay down for an x-ray. You wince as you obey him. The smooth, hard surface hurts your welts and your bottom aches where Homelander used you most recently. You can feel a trickle of his fluid leaking out. You hear the paper sheet crinkle as you settle upon it.

You hear the doctor yawn, and the shuffle of his shoes as he moves about the room. The doctor orders you to keep still without looking directly at you. He stands beside you for a short time to operate the machine. Scanning the upper part of your body, you think, for any breaks or fractures made by Super hands.

You hear his footsteps recede as he walks to the far corner of the room, his attention focused on a small screen in the corner that you didn’t even notice before. 

The deep rumble you heard before repeats itself again, louder this time. It is coming from somewhere far above you. A small tremor, barely noticeable, shakes the metal pallet you lay upon.

The doctor yelps aloud. You turn your head to see him jump back from the screen, his eyes like saucers. His glasses are askew and his face is covered with a sheen of sweat. 

His hands fly to his thin hair, where his hairline has receded to a pronounced widow’s peak. He grabs at his own scalp as though to yank away what little remains there.

“Oh shit.” His voice warbles higher with each repetition. “Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit…”

At the same time, the deep bass sound issues forth from the building above you again. You feel the walls shake around you. The doctor’s eyes go even wider and you see him dash about the room in a panic. He reminds you of a puppy in a thunderstorm. You can smell his nervous sweat.

“I was supposed to check you for stuff like this when you first got here. Then I had that phone call from my wife, and I didn't remember…” He babbles the words, looking straight at your face for the first time. “Oh shit. They are going to rip my arms off…”

He runs to one of the tables and you hear the metal clatter of surgical instruments. “Okay.” He gasps. “Least I can do is take it out.”

He scampers to your side and you see a small syringe in his hand. You startle but he grabs ahold of your right shoulder, the one Stormfront almost dislocated. 

“No! _You_ stay down.” Despite the harsh words he looks far more terrified than angry. “Don’t move. I have to give you a local before I yank out that locator chip, or you won’t hold still.”

_Locator chip?_

You feel the pinch of a needle somewhere between your ear and collarbone on the right side. Soon the area around it feels numb and dead. You see a scalpel in his hand, descending toward you. When he lifts it up again the blade is red with your blood. You see him reach for a pair of forceps, then hastily place some gauze over your incision and tape it into place.

He holds the small forceps up for a moment, staring at whatever it was he pulled out of your flesh. It looks rather like a common capsule of over-the-counter painkillers, if it were longer and thinner but made of glass. 

“No, definitely not Vought. It’s not even the right size…” The doctor mutters. He turns his back to you and runs towards the screen in the corner of the room. You hear him tapping on it.

The room shakes once more. Tiny bits of plaster rain down from the ceiling. You spit plaster dust out of your mouth and rise from the pallet, your eyes fixed on the doctor’s face. You hear him mutter something about a scanner, and something beeps.

“Oh, _motherfucker!”_ The doctor makes a screeching sound. He skitters backwards from the screen, knocking a flimsy plastic chair to the floor. 

He whirls towards you and you see the scalpel in his hand, aimed in your general direction. Yet the hand holding it is shaking and the eyes behind it are wild. He steps back from you, keeping his back to the wall. 

_“You?”_ His eyes scan you head-to-toe, as though he expects you to transform into a tiger before his eyes and then lunge at his throat. “How the fuck can _you_ be CIA?”

The building shakes again. Plaster rains down from the ceiling. The doctor yelps aloud. He is so flustered he drops the scalpel, and you can hear it clatter to the floor.

You leap down from the table, the battered state of your body forgotten. You feel a wide grin split your face. You can almost see the image of Grace Mallory’s sad smile. Your mind hears the echo of her voice, that last time the two of you spoke on the phone. Your chest feels light.

“Me...no. I'm not. Someone I love was. I never knew GG put a chip in me. She must have done it when I was asleep.” 

The doctor buries his face in his hands. “They're going to rip my arms off, then beat me to death with them. I was supposed to look for one of these earlier and my sorry ass just forgot. Goddamn it, that little Nazi is going to shock my nuts, and then the manchild in tights is gonna laser--”

His words are cut short by a deep cracking sound many floors above. The doctor yelps. The dust of ceiling tiles rains down on both of you. Plaster dust fills your mouth and nose for a moment and you spit and sneeze to clear it.

You take one step towards the doctor and stare directly into his eyes. The image of GG spurs you on. The concern in her eyes, the authority in her voice. You try to find some small measure of her self-assurance and put it in your tone.

“What is your name?” The trembling building goes silent again and your voice rings through the room.

“Williams.” The man answers as though it were automatic. “Dr. Glen Williams.”

“Well, Dr. Williams.” You feel a smile playing around the corners of your lips. “It would seem that my chip worked. Because I know what this noise is. It’s not thunder. It’s the same sound my kids always made, playing in the woods. And punching down trees. My Super kids.”

You know that your body still bears raw wounds but the pain recedes into the background. Your heart beats faster and you feel your adrenaline surging, yet at the same time your mind is suffused with a strange sense of calm. As though a bell has rung in your head, announcing the break of dawn. 

Outside, you can almost imagine the battle. You have been imagining it for years, after all. You picture laser eyes breaking through the upper floors. You visualize your son or daughter throwing Homelander out of the sky and onto the roof of this skyscraper. Laser eyes cutting through Stormfront…

But whatever is happening in the air above, you think, you are essentially inside a building that is getting punched. Not demolished; it isn’t caving in around you. But the structure keeps shaking as though it were on the receiving end of a giant boxer’s gloves. 

Plaster and dusty bits of ceiling panels rain down around the both of you. The plastic shield protecting a fluorescent light shakes loose and falls to the linoleum floor.

You’re in a war zone.

“Dr. Williams, do you hear that?” You raise your voice and watch him cower. His face bears a thin coating of plaster dust from the ceiling and sweat almost drips off of him. 

“It’s the sound of three of Homelander’s chickens coming home to roost!” You laugh. “And if you’re scared of _him,_ imagine _three…”_

The floor shakes beneath you. In the next room, you hear metal surgery tools spill from a table and crash onto the linoleum. 

“What you’re hearing is my kids. And one of their friends. You are hearing _three_ people as powerful as Homelander. They have their sights aimed on this building like a damn drone strike.”

You pause to draw breath. Dr. Williams stands perfectly still, his eyes fixed on your face. 

“They came here to kill Homelander. Because he raped their mothers. Because he tears people apart for fun just like you said.”

The floor trembles beneath your feet. The walls shake. Somewhere in the depths of the building, an alarm goes off. The sound fades to a dull roar.

“I know you work for Vought so you're accustomed to being on the winning side. But three Homelanders against one? Believe me, that’s not it!”

As though to underscore your point, the walls shake again. You grab onto the x-ray pallet with one hand to steady yourself.

Your voice softens. You place your free hand over your heart, not breaking his gaze. “I know how it is. You're just an average guy doing a job. Now you find yourself in the middle of a war. Don't you think that _now_ is a good time to defect? You can defect with a valuable asset. All you need to do is take me to the roof. Go with me to the top of this building. Stand there with me until one of my kids just drops out of the sky and scoops us up. Both of us.”

In the next room, a fluorescent light is shaken loose and smashes to the linoleum. You hear glass tubes shatter into splinters. The thunderous sound grows louder.

“This is a war zone.” You say to him.

“War zone…” The doctor repeats your words and swallows hard. You hear a wavering in his voice.

“And my side believes in treating its prisoners of war and defectors the right way. You have my word on that. Would you rather be the guy who delivered Homelander Jr.'s mother to him safely, or be the guy who works for Homelander and just failed him?”

Dr. Williams stares at you, and blinks. The building shakes around you and he loses his footing. He tumbles to the linoleum floor.

You hold onto the x-ray bed with your left arm, the one in a cast. You reach out your right towards him. Extending a hand, helping him to his feet. His hands are cold and clammy. 

He adjusts his sweaty glasses. He keeps ahold of your hand, staring at you like a deer in the headlights. 

Your gaze penetrates deep into his. “Dr. Williams. All you have to do is take me to the roof. Don't you want to see your wife again?”

“Goddamn it...yes!” He gives you a single nod. He takes off towards the room’s door at almost a jog, still gripping your hand in his own. Dragging you after him. 

His palm print opens the door, and allows you both access to the elevator. All the way to the top floor, which is labelled with a symbol that resembles a helicopter pad.

The elevator opens on a long hallway with a single steel door at the end. Dr. Williams uses his palm print on the sensor beside it. 

The door swings open.

Fresh air blows hard at your face as you run out onto the rooftop after him. It bears the crisp taste of morning. Natural light hits your eyes.

You take in the city beneath you.

The Vought Tower Sydney looms over most other buildings you see. Office spaces and condos are packed tight all the way to the harbor, where the rising sun has lit both sky and water with soft pastel tones. The clouds above look like cotton candy, shading from violet to pink. The air smells of the sea.

Reaching out on a peninsula of sorts you see the signature white wedge shapes of the Sydney Opera House, a building you only saw in photos before now. Not far from it, a bridge packed with cars. Several craft are out on the water. They are too far away for you to make out any details.

You cast your eyes at the helipad surface around you. It is gray concrete except where a bright white “H” is painted in its center, with a circle around it. The helipad is empty and you see that it is broken up in several places. Places where a Supe landed, leaving an impact crater. You notice deep furrows in the helipad that are still smoldering. The kind left behind by eye lasers.

Dr. Williams releases your hand. He adjusts his glasses and wipes the sweat from his brow. 

You hear the unmistakable _shoom_ and _crack_ of Super feet landing hard on concrete to your right, a dozen paces away. You spin towards the sound. The morning wind whips at your face.

You see a blonde man land on one knee, with one arm out. His long black trench coat flaps in the wind. It is turned up at the collar.

He rises to his full height. His golden hair is cut in a choppy style, almost unkempt. His short, neat beard shines in the morning sun.

His back is to the east, putting the growing glow of the sunrise behind him. Dawn is breaking.

He extends one bare hand towards you, as though to begin a handshake. His features are calm and relaxed. His blue eyes are like pools of still water. He looks to be in his mid-twenties.

“Hello. You must be the mother.” His deep voice carries above the whistle of the wind. “Your twins showed me pictures. My name is Ryan. Ryan _Butcher.”_

He places extra emphasis on the surname, you notice. As though that is the most meaningful part of the sentence.

He is wearing black pants and black working boots, coated in a thick layer of sandy Australian dirt all the way up to the knee. He wears a black Hawaiian shirt with a brightly-colored pattern of green leaves and flowers upon it. You recognize the flowers as birds of paradise. A flower with petals that resemble both a bird in flight and a blazing ember. Orange and yellow, shot through with blue.

Something flickers before you and you gasp.

Ryan Butcher is on fire.

He doesn’t appear to notice, but his coat has been dealt more than one glancing laser blow and is now aflame. The long tail of his black trench coat is smoldering and the flames are licking upward. One of his long sleeves is half-burned off and still smoking. The suntanned skin of his left arm is exposed.

His brow begins to furrow until he notices the direction of your gaze. Ryan glances down at his clothes.

He pats out the fire with his bare hands, as though brushing off some troublesome dust. He then turns his attention back to you.

“Will you please come with me? Your twins asked me to go get you….”

Ryan Butcher casts his eyes towards a point in the sky behind you. “While they took the fight to those cunts.”

You follow the direction of his gaze. You spot dark shapes in the sky, so high above that you need to squint at them.

One of those shapes separates into two and you recognize Grace’s blonde hair whipping in the wind. Next to her, a flapping dark cape and sparks of violet electricity. Your daughter is grappling Stormfront in the air. You smell the ozone of her electric discharges and find that your mouth suddenly tastes of sex and fear. Your knees go weak.

Not far away you recognize David. He isn’t flying directly at Homelander but _around_ him, spinning in erratic patterns. Homelander’s red beams of light pierce the sky where David was a moment ago, again and again. You hear Homelander bellow in frustration. You feel as though his voice shakes the sky.

“Ryan, my kids…” You gasp. “They need you.”

You feel his hand on your arm, steadying you. Ryan tells you not to worry about them. 

“I have some friends. They're very good with explosives and traps, and they've been preparing for this. You know, Colonel Mallory's people. Just let me take you to them. We need to draw Homelander and Stormfront in their direction anyway, and away from the city. Then I promise you I will join David and Grace in the sky.”

He prepares to lift you in his arms but you point to Dr. Williams. “Yes, please! But take this doctor too. He helped me escape.”

“Certainly, Miss.” 

He holds you each under an arm. You cling tight to the right side of his muscled body.

You feel a surge in your chest, as though the hope within it could burst forth all over the city beneath you.

You hear his half-burned trench coat flapping as he sails through the air. The wind whips your hair against your face. Vought Tower Sydney soon disappears behind you.

Ryan Butcher lifts you into the clouds.

  
  
  
  
  



	7. Chapter 7: And Crown Thy Good with Brotherhood

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Showdown.

**Chapter 7: And Crown Thy Good with Brotherhood**

The clouds dissipate as you fly into the dry Australian Outback. This far from the coast the sky is a clear and brilliant shade of blue. 

Beneath you, streets and skyscrapers have given way to the orange-red, sandy soil that Australia is so famous for. It peeks out in between thick clusters of tough grass, scrub brush, and many small squat trees. There are red hills on the horizon.

You can hear the sounds of battle behind you as Ryan soars. The electric hum of laser eyes and the crackle of lightning echo in your ears.

You can see the world beneath you, but not behind you. Your muscles ache from trying to crane your neck towards your kids. Ryan has reassured you more than once that they are all right, not far behind, that everything is going according to plan so far. Dr. Williams, on the opposite side, has been mostly silent. You have listened to his gasps a few times, and heard his cell phone ring in his pocket.

At last Ryan Butcher lowers the two of you to the earth. You feel hard-baked soil beneath your thin, slip-on blue prison shoes.

You look about. From the air, you saw what you thought was a tiny hill with a gradual slope. But now that you stand before it you recognize the sort of small bunker that you’ve seen soldiers on television refer to as a “pillbox.” 

Referred to as one, you think, because it resembles a box of pills so much. Small, squat, with an angled design that looks more stable than a standard cube. The walls are thick concrete with red dirt piled high, forming a gentle slope up to the openings that resemble narrow windows without glass. The sort designed to fire bullets out of.

Ryan urges you and the doctor into the bunker. You have to crawl on your hands and knees but once you are through the low entrance you rise to your feet again and look around you.

You blink. Your eyes had adjusted to the brilliant sun of a morning in the Australian Outback, and now you stand in cool concrete shade. 

The five of you are crowded close together. Not only is the bunker not large, but there is a thick concrete pillar in the center of it to add support to the low ceiling above. It takes up considerable space in the room.

Out of the corner of your eye you see Dr. Williams put his back against a wall and sit down, as though to make himself small and disappear. You see him fumble with his cell phone.

The other three faces turn away from the long, window-like openings for a moment and glance in your direction. All of them are dressed for battle, with thick black boots and durable black work pants. The pants are streaked with grime and coated in red dirt up to the knee.

You recognize an olive-skinned man with dark hair and a single gold earring. Frenchie has an RPG launcher over his shoulder with some kind of homemade modification upon it, held in place by wires and duct tape. He wears a sand-colored t-shirt and tinted goggles over his eyes. He nods at you once.

The indomitable Supe you remember so well gives you a soft smile. Her long black hair falls perfectly straight and her fingernails are coated in bright blue polish. Not Homelander’s navy blue but a sort of electric shade that draws in the eye. She wears long black sleeves.

You have not seen Kimiko or Frenchie in more than a decade and a half, but no one forgets the faces of their rescuers.

Beside them you see a man you only know from photos. His hair is cut like Ryan’s, or Ryan’s like his. They have the same style of beard, and the same gentle smile.

Billy Butcher wears a sand-streaked, floral Hawaiian shirt and carries some sort of automatic weapon slung over his shoulder. His black hair is shot through with streaks of gray, from the tip of his beard to the top of his head. 

He is grinning like a kid on Christmas morning. He barely spares you a glance before he turns back to the window slot. His eyes are fixed on Ryan in the sky. You see him pump his right fist and hear him cheer encouragement at his adopted son.

Your gaze follows his. You dash towards the window slot and peer out.

Your eyes find Homelander and Grace in the air not far away. They are close enough to the bunker now that you can see Grace’s ripped jeans and torn yellow shirt. 

No, you realize, not ripped. Burned. Her clothes, like Ryan’s, have been scorched by Homelander’s laser eyes. Her eyes glow bright red as well.

Homelander’s striped cape billows behind him in the wind. It is shot through with holes from the beams of Grace’s eyes, like Swiss cheese.

They fire at one another in a maneuver that reminds you of fighter pilots, strafing with red lasers. He spins around to soar above her, and she dives--

The fiery beams of Homelander’s eyes fix on a point right above Grace’s left knee. He circles around her leg, keeping his eyes on the same spot. Then swings his head back and forth in a sawing motion, as though his eyes are knives ripping through a tough cut of meat.

Her scream of pain pierces the sky. And your heart. 

As though in slow motion you watch her tumble backwards in the air, clutching the charred stump. Grace’s severed leg flies through the air like a thrown stick and falls onto the bushy grass. She lands not far away. Again and again, you hear her crying out.

A moment later you recognize a short black cape tumbling through the air. A familiar form surrounded by a haze of purple lightning is thrown down onto the sand. David just slammed his fist into Stormfront’s chest in the air, knocking her from the sky and down onto the earth. Her violet bolts recede and she gasps for breath. 

He follows her to the ground and stands beside her, both fists raised in front of him like a boxer. You see the red glow of his eyes…

Yet he does not fire them. You see his chest heaving as he glances back at his sister, laying in the dirt with her left leg burned off. You don’t need to see him up close to know the empathy in his eyes, the agony in his face. 

_Oh David...I’m sorry. Grace, I’m so sorry._ You think, for the flash of a moment. _You’re so young, still. This is too much. Asking too much..._

Stormfront’s steel limbs are melted in several places and her flesh is charred. Yet her eyes are defiant. She glares up at him and begins to rise to her feet again.

“C’mon, David.” Her prim voice is loud enough to carry to you. She shakes off some of the sandy red soil and brushes it off of her arms. “Drop the act already.”

She smirks at him. “You keep missing us, or you just scratch me with your eyes a little. You’ve never killed before, have you? Give me a break.” 

You can almost hear Stormfront roll her eyes. She is back on her feet now, steel hands on leather-clad hips.

“I’m over a hundred years old and I’ve lost count. Couldn’t tell you, honestly. How many bodies I’ve left behind. You, you’re still just a boy. A deviant little boy, at that. _I’m_ the reason you exist in the first place. I wanted the perfect Super babies. I got them.”

She looks about. Her focus centers on the bunker as though locking upon a target. She peers through the slot and you see her recognize your face. She points a gloved finger in your direction and casts her eyes back towards your son.

“I got what I wanted, then that whore stole you from us. Now you can’t even fight worth a damn.”

David casts his eyes towards you. You see them widen into saucers. 

_No, David!_ You want to scream. _Don’t look at me, just end her already!_

From the shock on David’s face, it’s plain to you that he has been too busy fighting to do more than glance at you. And now, his Super eyes see everything.

David, who is a doctor at heart. Not a soldier. Who looks at the world with a doctor’s eyes. Including his sister who just got her leg burned off. As well as his mother, whose health he is concerned about.

Your hands fly to your torso as though to cover yourself, even though you know it is useless.

Your left forearm is in a cast. Your back is a mess of welts where you were beaten. You are stretched and soiled in places that you just try not to think about. Your skin crawls. It is worse than being naked. There are no secrets left. 

David’s fists are up as though to throw a punch, but he is shaking. 

_Can he really see it?_ You shiver. _Every place they tore into me, and everything they left behind?_

His face hardens with pure rage. His eyes become an inferno. He turns their blaze towards Stormfront--

An instant later you see a streak of red, white, and blue in the air behind your son. Red dirt is thrown high, as though a meteor has struck the ground.

When the shower of scrub brush, soil, grass and stones finishes raining back down you see Homelander pinning David to the earth. His blue-suited arms are wrapped about your son’s neck in a headlock. 

“Got you, faggot.” Homelander growls.

You don’t even realize you are screaming and flailing until you feel the gentle, firm pressure of Billy Butcher’s arms. Billy is restraining you in a way that makes you think of a doctor with a seizure patient. As though he feared you dashing from the bunker and taking on Homelander with your bare fists, or attempting to crawl out through the window slot to your son’s aid.

Homelander is pinning David down _exactly_ as he did to you in your cell. His body is stretched out over David’s back. Pressing him into the ground.

Not for the same purpose, of course. Not a sexual intention but a deadly one. He holds his son’s head in a death grip. He is twisting it to the side. 

Homelander’s teeth are bared as he talks. Both of their faces are coated in a layer of red dirt.

“Look at you!” He snarls. “Just standing there staring when you would be fighting, if you were a real man. But you’re not.”

He keeps twisting David’s neck. You hear him gasp and choke. “You needed me, son. If I had been there when you were growing up then you would be strong now. With me, you could have been one of the greatest superheroes ever. Instead of some shaggy-haired, queer, weak boy with a disgusting accent who couldn't even protect his sister. I shot her right out of the sky but she was still ten times the fighter you are. You’re a disgrace to me.”

You are screaming yourself hoarse now but you cannot stop. You feel another pair of hands restraining you from rushing out of the bunker towards them. Incredibly strong ones, with blue nail polish. You struggle against them in vain.

“It's your mother's fault. They are mud, they can never understand how great we are.” Homelander tightens his grip and keeps twisting. “But it's too late for you. I can tell. My firstborn son almost killed Stormfront. Believe me, I learn from my mistakes.” 

You hear something crack in David’s neck--

Then you see a flash of red fire from directly above Homelander. A laser blast from the sky hits right between Homelander’s shoulder blades. Where the stars meet the stripes on his back, red flame is spreading outward.

He howls in pain and breaks his grip. He rolls off of David and fires his eyes at Ryan, who is swooping through the air above him. 

David climbs to his feet, eyes ablaze. His fire joins his half-brother’s, aimed at the center of that broad chest. Between the two golden eagles. Homelander is on his back, howling in pain from the place at his sternum where two sets of laser eyes meet. 

A third beam joins in. You see Grace floating through the air towards them. She is pale, her breath looks ragged, and her left leg ends above the knee in a blackened stump. Yet you see that her eyes are clear and her hands are clenched into fists. She can still fly, and fight.

_Of course._ You feel your face break into a grin and realize you have stopped struggling against Kimiko’s protective arms. She releases her grip on you.

_Yes, of course. My Super daughter. My Grace…_

“Diabolical!” You hear Billy Butcher shout beside you. “The tripod, kids! Just like I showed ya!”

From two sides and above, the three beams hit Homelander’s chest and turn it to a bloody cauldron of fire.

Out of the corner of your eye you see a flash of purple lightning. Stormfront, taking to the air. She soars towards Homelander and calls out his name. Her voice is high with panic.

“Frenchie, now!” Billy Butcher shouts.

A thunderous sound echoes beside you as Frenchie fires his RPG. It strikes Stormfront straight in the chest. Her plasma bolts fizzle to nothing. She plummets back to the earth.

She crashes upon flat red stones, burned and dazed. She is bleeding out from dozens of wounds and one of her steel arms sticks out at an odd angle. A jagged laser slash on her neck--the work of David’s eyes--is torn wider and deeper.

The wound spurts forth a crimson gout. Her red blood spreads out in a pool around her on the sunbaked stone. She tries to sit up but can’t right herself or even focus her eyes. She is growing paler, her lips ashen from blood loss.

You realize that Kimiko has bolted out of the bunker. Soon the long-haired Supe is upon the other one. 

Stormfront lays supine on the level surface of the rock and Kimiko is straddling her chest. Kimiko lifts a large red stone in both Super hands and brings it down on Stormfront’s face, over and over again.

The stone breaks after half a dozen blows. Without pausing, Kimiko picks up another. 

And another. 

And another.

And another.

One wet crunch follows the one before it until nothing remains of Stormfront’s head but red paste. Her Nazi brains ooze out onto the red rock beneath and begin to dry in the bright Australian sun.

Homelander’s roar feels as though it shakes the world. The scream of a man who has lost everything. He stands at the center of three beams, but they are meeting at his neck now instead of his chest. He begins to stumble in either direction but the beams follow him. He cannot fly upward without running straight into Ryan.

He slashes out blindly, cutting around him with his eyes. He aims at everything and nothing. His laser beams strike the red dirt, deal glancing blows to his three children, or fly off harmlessly into the sky. He has all the control of a toddler in a temper tantrum, with all the power of a god. 

Most of his shots land on either side of the bunker but one flies straight through the opening, the one large enough to shoot an RPG through. It strikes the pillar at its center and you hear it give way with a mighty crack.

“Everybody out!” Billy Butcher shouts. The low concrete roof begins to cave in. Soon you are under the bright sun once more, running through thick patches of tough grass and red dirt. You glance at him and Frenchie, then down at yourself, and finally over to where Dr. Williams sputters and coughs. He mutters something about dropping his cell phone. Everyone is a bit banged up but nothing looks serious. You got out in time.

You turn about to see that Ryan, David and Grace have all surrounded their father, so close together that they could almost join hands. Their eye beams still meet at his neck, which now looks like a boiling mass of molten, bloody flesh.

Homelander’s body falls forward. His neck has been charred. You see the white bone of his vertebrae exposed to the air. 

His broad, blue-suited chest lands in the dirt. His cape and suit have been slashed to ribbons by the Super eyes of his three kids.

You look up from his fallen form to see Grace holding his head in her hands. She is lifting it aloft like a trophy, making you think of half-remembered paintings you saw in a museum. Ones that involved guillotines, and heads that wore powdered wigs until they were sliced from royal bodies forever.

Yet his lips still move. No words emerge from Homelander’s mouth but his eyes glow bright, electric red. 

Those eyes focus on you...

And fire. 

You scream aloud. Scorching pain splits you, between your belly button and your pubic mound. 

He has fired upon you in the same place he first did more than sixteen years ago, without the shield of the building wall that he destroyed then. 

You look down. Perhaps if he had been in better control he would have sliced you in two. This shot was jagged, uneven. It has cut your stomach open. Blood pours forth from the wound. You watch your own intestines spill out onto the dirt.

Grace places Homelander’s head on the sand. His eyes are still firing erratic red blasts but his face is aimed downward. His eyes strike only the ground beneath him.

Three laser beams focus on the back of his head. His blonde scalp burns, then the bone of his skull. At last you can see his brain boiling.

David, Grace and Ryan fire the beams of their eyes until nothing remains of this head but a pile of black ash.

The wind kicks up. The outback is silent. The ash that remains of him soon begins to blow away.

David and Grace rush to your side.


	8. Chapter 8: From Sea to Shining Sea

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Peace.

**Chapter 8: From Sea to Shining Sea**

Your eyes fix on Grace as she flies toward you. You call out her name, your gaze going back and forth between her bright blue eyes and the stump of her leg.

“Relax, Mom.” She smiles at you and you hear her voice become thick with tears. “It’s just a leg. I can fly, I don’t really need it. Or…” 

She waves one hand towards Stormfront’s remains. She doesn’t spare a glance towards the lifeless, headless Nazi’s body with its bent metal limbs. You feel her arms around you, easing you down to the ground. Onto your back, to rest.

“Maybe I’ll take one of hers. She’s obviously not using them anymore.”

“Oh, my Grace. I love you so much.” You smile up at her. You reach out to touch her face. It feels warm and solid. Your fingers brush away a thin layer of ash, soil and dried blood. You leave your fingerprints behind, wet with the blood spilled from your own belly.

You are laying down now. Your back is propped up by one of the innumerable, hardy, thick tufts of grass that dot the vast wilderness around you. Grace kneels at your left, David at your right. As you once nursed a baby at each breast, now the young woman and the young man support you one under each arm.

You look straight at David’s face. The Super doctor. His blue eyes brim with unshed tears and his face is aghast.

One glance at your son tells you that you don’t have long to live. 

Somewhere far on your left you hear rocks breaking under Super fists. You recognize a voice as Ryan Butcher’s. 

“No, goddamn it, no. _Not her too._ Goddamn it!”

The sound of cracking stones ends and you hear a murmur of voices. Then you hear footsteps on the hard-baked red dirt, coming towards you. 

Billy Butcher stands near your feet, looking down at you. His arm is slung around Ryan’s shoulders. 

You gasp out his name and meet his hazel-green eyes. “Billy. You’re Ryan’s _real_ Dad. GG trusted you, so I do. Please take care of my kids--”

You don’t have to finish that sentence. His face reminds you of a thunderstorm but his voice is quiet and calm. 

“Yep. I will, luv.”

You look down at yourself, at the long wound across your stomach and the viscera that has spilled forth from it. You can see the damage to your body but nothing aches or throbs. It feels more like slipping into a warm bath with a glass of wine. Even more so because you feel tipsy, but not falling down drunk.

Your two kids have tears in their eyes. Ryan’s, however, are beginning to glow electric red. His jaw is clenched tight. 

You say his name in a soft voice. His eyes fade back to blue.

“Thank you.” You smile up at Ryan. “For...being their big brother. Right after your brother and your sister here were born, that was when I met GG. Godmother Grace. Grace Mallory. I told her that even after everything that had happened...if I knew that _this_ was the only way to stop Homelander, I would do it all over again. Every second of it. And more than once.”

You meet each pair of eyes in turn. “And that’s still true.” 

You smile up at Grace and squeeze her shoulders with your left arm. Then at David, and do the same with your right. “So, it’s okay. It really is. You did it.”

“We did it.” Grace says. “Us. All of us.” She glances over to where Frenchie and Kimiko now stand, at Billy Butcher’s elbow. She indicates every member of the group in turn, missing no one.

You always knew she was a born leader, you think. Making sure everyone on the team knew how important they were. _Even now. My Grace..._

You feel a wide smile spread across your face. Your arms and legs are going numb. Your vision is fading around the edges.

_How many times over the years..._ You wonder. _Have I lost consciousness?_

You passed out from a laser burn and woke up in Homelander’s bed. You begged two strangers named Frenchie and Kimiko for help after you gave birth to your twins, and then passed out...and woke up with your son and your daughter in your arms. 

_Now I'm losing consciousness…and this time I won't wake up. It will be just that peaceful._

In your mind’s eye you see the ashen remains of Homelander’s brain, blowing away into the sky. Dispersing into nothing. Drifting upon the sun-baked red Australian soil, or floating towards the sea.

_I don't believe there is anything on the other side. Not for me, and not for him._

_Life is a coin that is tossed into your hands. You don't control the amount you are given, but you have some choice on where to spend it._

_The ashes of a war criminal are blowing away in the wind._

_Two scourges upon humanity...died today. They held most of the twentieth century in their fists, and the beginning of the twenty-first as well. In different ways, at different times. Now that’s over. And so are they._

_My life was well spent._

You reach out with a bloody, nerveless finger to _boop_ Grace’s nose, like you used to do when she was little to make her laugh. Your hand leaves a bloody fingerprint on the tip of her nose, and then on your son’s. You see tears on their cheeks.

“Remember what I used to tell you when you were little? That you are like two of the turtles with the toughest shells in the world…”

David finishes the sentence. “But we are still turtles.” He wipes his eyes. “Of course, Mom. Of course I remember.”

Grace draws a deep breath. “And it's only the other turtles that make the pond a place worth living in.”

You smile up at them one last time. “You just made the world a better place. And now that world is at your feet, isn’t it? Your feet, and Ryan’s. Whatever you do now...don't forget about...all of us little turtles. All of the other people. People just like your mother.”

You blink. The light is fading. “Now. You could try to make the world _your pond..._ and be miserable like him. Or you can share it like it’s supposed to be shared. Homelander treated people like toys and that’s why he was so cruel, and never happy. All the long years of his life. And I know you won’t be like that. _Ever._ Because you will always see my face...in the other turtles in the pond, won't you? All of them.”

You shut your eyes one last time. “I love you, David and Grace. And I am so proud of you.”

Your blood soaks into the red Australian soil.

You die smiling. At peace.

***  
  


**It is in our bodies that we free or enslave ourselves. The politics of the flesh are the roots of power.**

**You cannot buy the revolution. You cannot make the revolution. You can only _be_ the revolution. It is in your spirit, or it is nowhere.**

[ **― Ursula K. Le Guin** ](https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/874602.Ursula_K_Le_Guin)

[ Check me out on Tumblr!](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/annie000expatriated)

**Since an epilogue has been requested:**

_David and Grace lived with Billy and Ryan for a while until they finished growing up._

_Then they fulfilled their dreams. Grace directed movies and David became a doctor. Ryan went on to be an actual superhero, so to speak--that is, he was on the CIA payroll and he eventually became an agent, spending his life fighting crime and espionage under the guidance of Billy Butcher. Until Billy retired and eventually passed away._

_All three kids--David, Grace and Ryan--eventually found husbands or wives and started families. Grace had three kids, Ryan had two, and David and his husband adopted one._


End file.
